Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Staunton, June 14 – The identification
of a pro-Moscow Ukrainian who fought against Kyiv in the first months of Moscow’s
war in Ukraine as having been among those who suppressed the anti-corruption
demonstrations in Moscow on Monday calls attention to a much larger problem:
Russian efforts to recruit non-Russian janissaries it can use at home and
abroad.

Russian officials have dismissed
these suggestions as anti-Russian propaganda, but they are plausible: the
200,000-strong Gagauz nation, a Turkic speaking but Orthodox Christian minority
southeast of Chisinau, is historically pro-Russian and has been the object of
Moscow’s attentions in the past.

For Moscow, the recruitment of such
people is especially useful for two reasons. On the one hand, because they have
nowhere to go, they are more likely to do what the Kremlin orders than even Russian
law enforcement personnel. And on the other, because they are irregulars,
Moscow can disown them in order to deflect responsibility if it needs to.

Further, the Reuters report suggests
that Moscow which tends to apply the same policies across the board may very
well be seeking to recruit other non-Russians in the so-called “frozen
conflicts” of the post-Soviet space, either to use them in its wars against
Russia’s neighbors or possibly, as in Kusyuk’s case, against Russia’s own
population.